Orange peel?

[Xcessiv]

Hi detaling colleagues.

My dad had a minor car accident and the body shop did a ****** job on the fender. There's orange peel.

Here's the best I could do with my Flex and:
- 2 passes of M95 on purple foamed wool pad
- 1 pass of SIP on orange pad
- 1 pass of Nano on blue pad
- Poorboys sealant
- Poorboys Natty's Blue



Is this the best I can do with this material? Any suggestion?

Thank you.
Yan

[Holden_C04]

I would stop there, Prep-Sol the area and apply a glaze. You can't wax fresh paint. You need a body shop safe product.

[Xcessiv]

Originally Posted by Holden_C04

I would stop there, Prep-Sol the area and apply a glaze. You can't wax fresh paint. You need a body shop safe product.

The paint isn't fresh. He got his car repaired last fall and then stored it.

[Eliot Ness]

Originally Posted by Xcessiv

.........Is this the best I can do with this material? Any suggestion?......

You can't polish or compound out orange peel, it has to be sanded first (wet or one of the newer dry systems). This procedure is called color sanding, but if you aren't familiar with doing this I'd leave it as it is. Below is a link that briefly describes the process:

How to Color-Sand a New Paint Job

The painter also has to shoot enough clear to allow for color sanding so you'd also want to know how much clear is on there.

[Xcessiv]

But didn't the M95 help? To me, the after picture looks so much better "orange peel" wise.

[Eliot Ness]

Originally Posted by Xcessiv

But didn't the M95 help? To me, the after picture looks so much better "orange peel" wise.

It's hard to tell because the light source, or at least what is shown in the pics, is different. You can knock down some of the peaks by compounding but you're really taking off more clear than you would by doing a proper wet (color) sanding first. Do a Google search and you'll find plenty of information on color (and wet) sanding.

[Xcessiv]

Originally Posted by Eliot Ness

It's hard to tell because the light source, or at least what is shown in the pics, is different. You can knock down some of the peaks by compounding but you're really taking off more clear than you would by doing a proper wet (color) sanding first. Do a Google search and you'll find plenty of information on color (and wet) sanding.

No, that's exactly the same lamp and the same pic. It's a double-500w lamp.

[Tusin]

It looks a lot better...however, obviously the Orange Peel is still there, but good job on clearing it up!

[Eliot Ness]

Originally Posted by Xcessiv

No, that's exactly the same lamp and the same pic. It's a double-500w lamp.

Then your reflections are a lot crisper, so you have improved the finish.

You want to sand instead of compound because you only want to take off the peaks of the orange peel down level to the valleys. You can do that fairly precisely by wet-sanding with a block. A pad will tend to take off material in both the peaks and valleys so it is almost impossible to remove OP 100% w/o sanding, plus you're removing more clear than needed.

[Xcessiv]

Thank you for the advice! This would be my first wet sand experience, I'll read about this.